


But Not For Us

by GoldenThreads



Category: X-Men (Comicverse), X-Terminators
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-27
Updated: 2014-04-27
Packaged: 2018-01-20 22:58:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1528850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldenThreads/pseuds/GoldenThreads
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the fall of Avalon, Skids struggles to stop falling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	But Not For Us

**Author's Note:**

  * For [buckythevampireslayer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/buckythevampireslayer/gifts).



> For Ric, who complained of not having any RustySkids fic to read. 
> 
> This is not what you wanted. My bad.

One bed empty in a two-bed room.

Flames still danced behind her eyes, fearful and familiar, and Skids rolled onto her side to stare at the second bed. Any minute now they’d bring Rusty in. Any minute now.

She couldn’t get warm. That clear, sharp cold of space lingered in her bones; no strong arms, no furnace to pull her back from the abyss. But here in the medical suite, surrounded by light instead of endless dark, all the dark shadows of the past few years slowly faded away. No more Acolytes, no more pain and paranoia.

The bed remained empty, and her heart didn’t beat. Skids couldn’t hear anything at all, the world swallowed up by the silence of a door that never opened and visitors that never came. She drifted along, unsure if she waited for years and years or only two harrowing hours. Not even a doctor showed up to check on her, to spout Shakespeare and offer a friendly face.

She curled her fingers into a fist, then stretched them out again, marveling that her fingertips could be so cold, so numb, without a touch of frostbite upon them.

 _You need to eat_ , came a voice so soft Skids mistook it for her own, breath catching in her throat. Survival instinct, maybe. Whatever she had left of one.

_Skids._

Firm, this time — just as forceful as it was patient.

 _Let me in,_ Jean asked, the gentlest command Skids had ever heard. She’d become so good at following commands, but now she hardly had the energy to answer.

“Door’s open,” Skids mumbled against her pillow.

 _I wasn’t talking about the door._ Jean gave a hesitant telekinetic nudge to the forcefield that had engulfed the room for days. Mourning was one thing — Jean had shed tears enough for Rusty on her own — but wasting away was another entirely. _You have to let it down. Please. For me._

Skids tucked her knees against her chest, hands clasped at her ankles, and pulled her wayward forcefield tight around her, close enough to suffocate. It burrowed away beneath her skin and curled into all her empty spaces, armor with nothing left within.

With the door finally unbarred, Jean carried a tray of food inside and settled herself at Skids’ bedside. She reached out a hand to smooth down the girl’s hair, whispering words of comfort and support, but every sentiment slipped free of its mark. Apologies stuck in her throat.

“I don’t want to be here,” Skids said at last, words falling like stones from her mouth, a finality too heavy to be moved. She barely even looked at Jean, the whole world gone empty of solace.

She needed friends and family, she needed a home again, and Jean reached out to her with loving arms and mind alike. Skids stilled in the embrace as Jean tiptoed around the sharp edges of her heart, skirting the twin riptides of agony and regret, searching for some happy memory to soothe her. But every memory had withered to broken glass, shattered and scathing shards of Rusty’s final moments — _At least we’re not **alone** ,_ whispered the ghost with a voice as fragile as wind chimes, caught in the undertow of its own ruin.

Jean hugged her tight, tears prickling in her eyes.

Before Jean could promise anything she couldn’t keep, Skids pulled away and stared at the door. Her gaze sluggishly rose to meet Jean’s own, sad eyes begging: _Let me go._

 _Again_ _,_ she didn’t add.

Maybe Jean heard it anyway, the hurt and hesitance and condemnation. She searched the girl’s face, her heart and mind, desperate for any way to keep her.

But whatever she found there was reason enough to let Skids go.

 

*

 

Out in Colorado, there were no codenames, no powers, no superheroes. She only had to be Sally Blevins, bio-chem major. No less, no more.

At freshman orientation, Sally’s group leader reminded her she’d need to _smile_ to make friends. She didn’t bother. Friends wouldn’t help her memorize the structure of amino acids and the binding rules of nucleotides — neither would forcefields.

By sophomore year she found herself in a messy house with two manageable roommates. They didn’t argue, they shared the chores, and they even split the grocery bill. Sally couldn’t ask for more.

On dreary mornings she made her coffee bitter, and sat at the kitchen table wondering how disgusted the Morlocks would be by her carefully crafted normalcy.

Sally spent most of her time in her room bent over her books, chasing the grades that would ensure her scholarship for the rest of the year. The money had to come from somewhere, and nobody in town was hiring, not even the hardware store. She wasn’t sure why she’d checked.

A kick at the door startled her, and her roommate Desmond shouldered his way into her room with a pile of laundry in his arms, fresh from the dryer. From behind the mountain of plush comforters, he grumbled, “Geez, why d’you need so many blankets anyway? Winter’s over if you haven’t noticed.”

Sally rolled her eyes, giving a little _hmph_ of something made to sound like laughter, and took the pile from his arms. “I get _cold_ , Des.” She dumped them on her bed and started folding them one by one.

With a sigh, Desmond left it at that. In most ways Sally was a model roommate, but she barely spoke to them, too wrapped up in her schoolwork to partake in friendly banter. Even the walls of her room were academically focused, totally bare except for a heavily scheduled calendar. He knew it wasn’t his place to worry after her, but…

As Desmond turned to leave the room, his eye caught on a photograph tucked under the books on her desk. Sally wasn’t paying him any mind, and really, it was _right there_ , how was he to resist? If it was a secret then she wouldn’t have left it sitting out.

The photograph wasn’t too exciting, just some dude with a dorky smile, but Desmond still stuck his head out into the hallway and shouted for Lucy to come look. They whispered over the picture together — Lucy had a thing for freckles, who knew — then peeked back into the room at Sally.

“Is this your _boyfriend?_ ” Lucy called, voice light and teasing.

Sally froze, the same old chill climbing up her spine.

“He’s a cutie,” Lucy laughed as she waved the photograph around.

“Come on, Sally — how could you keep this from us?” Desmond grinned, a bloodhound chasing the scent of gossip. “We wanna hear the whole story.”

Without a hint of haste or anger, Sally walked to the door and plucked the photograph from her roommate’s fingers. She didn’t look at it. “He was a sailor,” she told them. Her chest throbbed, tight with that armor that never really left. She didn’t need her powers to keep the world away, she managed that fine on her own.

“He didn’t come home.”

 

*

 

Roberto called her out of the blue one day, a dozen charming apologies at the ready for what a mess X-Force had made of her college life. _New Mutants look after their own_ , he told her, and she could imagine his grin on the other end of the line, earnest but cocky. He offered to put her on payroll for something called X-Corp.

It sounded more like blood money than employment. Still, one quick glance around her shitty apartment was all it took for Sally—for Skids to say yes.

By the time she arrived in Los Angeles, Roberto had a fully-furnished penthouse waiting for her. Skids turned down the limo on principal, but let him drag her on a whirlwind tour of the city. At dinner he popped the cork on a bottle of champagne and blabbed for hours.

It was a strange comfort to hear the old team had fallen apart, scattered to all corners of the country, just as lost as her. Even Roberto seemed lonely, more desperate to please her and keep her than their short-lived camaraderie warranted.

Maybe any New Mutant was good enough.

For weeks he invited her on missions he could’ve handled himself, to business functions as his personal bodyguard, and over for holidays at his personal beach resort. Skids shook her head at him and almost laughed, but always said yes. She had his back.

Sam came out west, and the calls stopped coming. Skids didn’t mind. She knew full well that the boys had always been inseparable and had a lot of lost time to make up for. Now someone else had to sit through Roberto’s boasts and champagne-induced rambling — if anything, it was a relief.

Then Amara, the prodigal New Mutant, finally veered back into their lives. The boys welcomed her home with unmeasurable excitement, and they all laughed and smiled to be together again, a New Mutants reunion at long last. Amara glowed warm beside them, proud as iron and strong as steel, warrior and hearth alike.

Skids curled her hands into fists, fingertips cold as ice where they pressed against her palms. She didn’t step forward; no one looked back.

Foolish to think she could go home when it was never her home to begin with.

 

*

 

M-Day didn’t take anything from her. Unlike most, it wasn’t a matter of chance. Skids simply had nothing left to give.

She could have stayed in her quiet penthouse when X-Corp closed, but the current swept her back to Westchester with all the others, left her with a hollow fury in her breast. The X-Men were no refuge — why couldn’t she ever _learn?_ They didn’t deserve her loyalty. They owed her so much more than a tent on the front lawn.

They owed Rusty more than an empty grave and a lonely headstone.

Skids had never seen it; she hadn’t stuck around long enough for whatever farce of a funeral they’d given him. But Leech brought her flowers day after day, and when once he took her hand and asked if they could visit his favorite big brother, she couldn’t say no. They walked through the dreary little cemetery hand in hand, Skids squeezing tight as they passed so many rows of tombstones, almost all of them children lost.

Leech laid his crumpled dandelions on the ground in front of Rusty’s headstone, then looked back to Skids for guidance, tears welling in his eyes. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, wondering when he got so tall, but didn’t say a word. They both knew nothing, no one was there.

Before they left, Leech crouched down and patted at the marker, tracing his fingers in the grooves of the engraved letters. He promised to draw a picture and bring it to show Rusty next time, just like he used to.

People came and went. Leech understood; Skids wished he didn’t.

The camp grew more crowded every day, and soon Skids had to share her tent with two other blondes. Others barely even bothered to tell them apart — the cowgirl, the volcano, the forcefield. Now their only value lay in their powers, reduced to numbers on a list while a new registration act lurked outside. Nothing ever changed.

Skids watched Amara wander around in a daze of all-too-familiar loss and agony, and wondered bitterly if Scott had roomed them together for that reason alone. She didn’t rise to the challenge, letting Inez look after their roommate’s wounded heart. But she listened to Amara’s stories of Antonio, the boyfriend she’d lost in the depths of La Cumbre, the only one her fiery touch could never harm, the one who’d danced through lava slicks and all love’s passions with her.

Skids didn’t say a word, their team motto sticking like sap in the back of her throat. She tugged her knees to her chest, turned to face the wall, and refused to let herself ache.

_You should have known better than to trust a boy who couldn’t burn._

 

*

 

Apocalypse’s blood boiled in her gut, hunger and loathing intertwined. No matter how hard Skids tried to purge the poison, she couldn’t skid free of a rot inside her very bones. She spent hours on the freezing tiles of the bathroom floor, trembling feverishly, her forcefield wrapped tight against her skin.

Amara found her there, huddled in an empty stall, and knelt by her side. She held back Skids’ hair when she was sick, rubbed gently at the back of her neck, and never said a word.

“I hate you,” Skids spat, though she didn’t pull away. Her forcefield had given way beneath that warm, warm hand. “I hate all of you. Why can’t you just leave me _alone?_ ”

Every time Skids let herself fall under their spell, her life came crashing down around her. X-Men, Acolytes, New Mutants and Morlocks, they all fed her the same promises and lies. She’d spent too many years a pawn in their games, not even a cog in the machine, just some foolish creature crushed by the workings, and all she had to show for it was a string of disjointed stories. She’d bounced from place to place — friction could never hold her — and torn up all her roots, aimless and _hungry._

Her stomach lurched. No wonder Apocalypse dragged her in so easily; she didn’t even kick, didn’t even scream. Anything to fill that empty space inside her, anything.

“He’d be so disgusted of me,” she choked, trying not to lean into the familiar yet foreign heat of Amara’s offered hand. All she wanted to hear was _no, he wouldn’t_ _,_ even if the words were empty, even if Amara had never known him. She needed to believe he’d love her even now.

But Amara said, “It doesn’t matter what he’d think.” She leaned back on her haunches, jaw locked tight with some distant guilt. “If you’re disgusted with _yourself_ _,_ then live so you won’t be.”

 

*

 

With so few mutants left in the world, S.H.I.E.L.D. jumped at the chance to acquire one of their own — a tense, suspicious jump that they quickly denied. They didn’t play favorites. Her superiors called her Agent Blevins, everyone else just called her Skids, and she fought her way through the ranks like all the rest, embraced and shunned in equal measure.

Skids took a post on the Helicarrier as soon as she could, and whenever her fellow agents asked how she liked living in a ship high above the clouds, she told them _same old, same old_ _._ Noisier than she remembered, the walls of her room humming with the softest vibrations, and no warm voice to scold her when she was late for dinner, but the simple similarity put her at ease. She never pretended it was anything more than that.

In her free time Skids wrote letters, then never bothered to find stamps. Sometimes the other agents invited her for a chat, for a drink. Sometimes she even said yes.

When she took the rigorous qualification test for Level Three clearance, her field leader wished her well. He also wished, aloud, that she were actually trusted by the mutants. Skids didn’t blink as she told him she wished the same of S.H.I.E.L.D.

She passed her exams without incident, and the instructor gave an appreciative whistle as he skimmed over her results. Above average scores in marksmanship and strategy wouldn’t earn her any special attention, but her evasive and defensive skills were off the map. Inhumanly perfect, as a fellow agent had sourly put it.

He read over the results a second time, admiring them like a work of art. "Hell, it’s like nothing can even touch you."

"Yes, sir," Skids answered, a professional smile twisting the stiff corners of her mouth. "That's the idea."

 

*

 

By day, Utopia loomed in the distance as a curious eyesore, but at night it transformed into a jewel, glowing softy with all its mysteries. A beacon for all mutantkind, a haven, a harbor — Skids didn’t care what they called it. No matter what metaphor they wrapped around that hunk of rock, it wouldn’t make anyone believe it.

No one believed in Avalon, either.

Skids tucked her jacket tighter around her, shivering from the chill midnight breeze sweeping in off the water. She’d spent half the day walking barefoot along the shore, finally wandering out onto a lonely pier where she could sit and watch the surf. Her pockets were heavy with the smooth slivers of seaglass she’d picked up along the way. Now and then she tossed one back into the waves and listened for the tiny _plunk_ as it hit the water’s surface.

A shroud of silence had fallen over her, peaceful in its own way. Skids knew nothing was waiting for her in San Francisco, knew Selene had devoured all her miserable puppets before she fell, yet still Utopia summoned her. Ghosts drawn to a lighthouse, monsters wrapped in miracles.

She wondered if Scott would give her the security feeds if she asked. The slightest glimpse of red hair and a lick of flame would be enough for her. There hadn’t been anything left to bury the first time, but now… Maybe Selene had missed him, maybe he’d escaped, maybe he’d find her. It sounded ridiculous — she couldn’t even admit to herself that it was the reason she’d come all the way out here, as if Rusty would turn up out of the blue. She missed him, she’d _missed_ him, he’d been there one moment and gone the next, and she lost her only chance.

If she’d stayed with the X-Men, she could have seen him. Her fist closed around a whole handful of stones, and she cast them out into the ocean all at once. She’d never regretted her decision to leave. She refused to.

Yet the New Mutants hoarded a miracle of their own, a dead boy she’d never known, and Skids could imagine the hated words forming in their mouths. They’d look after him. That was what New Mutants always did, they found their way back together and swore they’d never fall apart, again and again.

It wasn’t jealousy that twisted her heart in her chest, but a bone-deep resignation finding a home in her at last. Her pockets were empty. Time to go.

Skids whispered her lover's name like a summoning, and the wind swept the words from her mouth.

_...the miracles were never for us…_


End file.
